André Robillard

Born 1932 in Orléans – FRANCE.

André Robillard’s childhood was marked by great behavioral difficulties. Because of the progressively growing clash with the family, he was placed from the age of eight in a school attached to a psychiatric hospital. With the passing years, the relationship with the family became even worse ; aggressive and violent, he was finally hospitalized when he was nineteen years old. In the hospital Robillard seems to have found a certain stability that allows him, around 1964, to acquire a particular status. He would be in charge of the water-treatment plant. At that time he also began producing arms (firearms, submachine guns) as well as spaceships from objects randomly collected in the workshop of the hospital. André Robillard does not consider himself as an artist, more as a „bricoleur“. To create his firearms he uses all kinds of found objects : pipes, electric tubes, strings, planks, cardboard boxes, rests of textiles, leather … Everything can be incorporated, transformed in a war machine. Inspired by his visit of the museum in Lausanne and in particular by the artistic production of Auguste Forestier, Robillard has also begun creating wooden cavalrymen and exotic animals. Parallel to his objects he draws guns, planets, satellites, stars, and of course, animals : fish, birds, cats, dogs, parrots, etc.